Into The Storm

by Melanie Moreland

  I was surprised to find Cecilia alone at the table, drinking what was probably her sixth or seventh cup of coffee. “Where’s Rabbit?” I asked while helping myself to a cup.

  “Lying down. She had a headache.”

  I sat down, nodding. “She’s been getting them a lot.”

  Cecilia looked at me. “She told me you think she is trying too hard to remember things.”

  “I think she is pushing herself too hard. I don’t think her mind is ready yet,” I explained. “I think that’s what is causing the headaches, but I want to be sure. I want her to see a doctor. I’m going to contact Daniel and see if he can help. Would you be able to come back and take her? I don’t want her to go alone … and I can’t take her.”

  Cecilia nodded. “Of course, Joshua.”

  She sat back. “Tell me everything.”

  I started with hearing the car and kept talking until I had brought her up to date with everything, including the online searching I had done. I left out the intimate details, but was honest about the events that led up to Rabbit trying to leave and my theories on what had happened to her before she got here. She winced when I spoke of the harsh words I had said to Rabbit, but other than a few questions for clarification, let me talk uninterrupted.

  Finally, I sat back and looked at her.

  “Wow.”

  I nodded. “I know. Wow is right.”

  “Sounds like the premise for one of your books.”

  I chuckled. “Life does tend to imitate art, Cecilia.”

  Her voice was soft. “You love her, Joshua?”

  I sighed. “I do. I have no idea how it happened but I do, Cecilia. Very much so.”

  Cecilia smiled at me. “She is very endearing, Joshua. There’s something about her. I feel like I’ve known her forever.” She looked at me quietly, her eyebrow furrowed in thought. Her voice was quiet when she spoke. “Have you both thought of the implications here, Joshua? Really thought about them?”

  “We didn’t plan this, Cecilia. We have talked a great deal about it. But right now, she is here, she is safe and this is where she wants to be. As long as she wants that, this is where she is staying.”

  She regarded me quietly. “You know you could be proactive, Joshua. I could take her back to Toronto with me and put the press on it. You could find out who she is pretty quickly.”

  I stared at her in horror. I hadn’t even thought about that. Before I could speak up, Rabbit’s voice came from behind me.

  “This is where I want to stay, Cecilia. I don’t want Joshua to be ‘proactive.’ If no one is looking for me then I’m not sure I want to go looking for them.”

  Rabbit’s arms came around my shoulders and I leaned back into her soft warmth. “As long as Joshua wants me here, this is where I want to be.”

  I lifted her hand and kissed it tenderly. “Always,” I murmured.

  I looked over at Cecilia. “She’s staying.”

  Cecilia shrugged. “Okay. Just making sure you guys had thought of all the options.”

  I pulled Rabbit’s arms tightly around me.

  “Subject closed, Cecilia.”

  “Did you drive here, Cecilia?” Rabbit asked over lunch. She was still pale-looking from her headache and I knew it was still lingering.

  Cecilia shook her head. “I don’t usually. The traffic is rather unpredictable on the 400 and sometimes it can take hours and hours. Joshua and my husband, Trevor, co-own a helicopter. I get flown to Gravenhurst from Toronto. I have a car I keep in town and drive out here usually.”

  Rabbit looked at me. “You own a helicopter?”

  I grinned at her. “Co-own. Trevor does a lot of business out of town and it made sense. He can make it home most nights to his wife. I can get Cecilia here fairly quickly and Trevor can use it to come and go when he needs to. Neither of us wants Cecilia driving that distance all the time. It was a sound investment.”

  Cecilia spoke up. “Sometimes I drive, especially if I am helping Joshua with edits or doing a bunch of things for him and plan on spending longer than a day here. But usually, it’s the chopper.”

  Rabbit wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a helicopter, but of course I can’t be sure. It must be an amazing view.”

  I chuckled. “I’ll make sure you get a ride one day.”

  Her smile was brilliant. “Thank you.”

  Cecilia and I spent the afternoon going through the edits I had been working on. Rabbit went for a walk with Bear, then came in and lay down with another headache. When I checked on her, I found her curled into a ball, her face buried in the pillow. I could hear her soft sobs from the doorway. I went over and sat down beside her, pulling her into my arms. “Nightmare?” I asked quietly, as I stroked the damp hair away from her face. She nodded. “Tell me.”

  “It’s just images,” she whispered. ”I keep seeing blue and feeling pain and I can’t get away from it. There are lights and flashes of swirling white and a sense of … being lost. Scared. There are loud angry voices. I can’t explain it.”

  I was convinced she was seeing small glimpses of what happened to her. The images were so consistent now. I sat up, taking her with me. “You’re safe, Rabbit. No one will hurt you here.”

  She nodded silently. “Is Cecilia staying the night?”

  I shook my head. “No, she’ll head home soon. She is just finishing up a few things for me. She’ll be back soon enough with some more work for me. You’ll see lots of her.”

  I stroked her cheeks, wiping away the dampness lingering there. “How about a nice soak in the tub and I’ll look after dinner. Cecilia brought some movies I wanted to see. You can pick one to watch and I’ll whip up one of my famous pizzas. They’re legendary. Sound good?”

  She nuzzled her face into my chest, then looked up at me. An indulgent smile was on her face. “I saw the pre-made pizza she brought, Joshua.”

  I grinned; pleased I could distract her and make her smile with my lameness. She knew that aside from grilling meat or scrambling eggs I wasn’t a very good cook. I waggled my eyebrows at her. “I’ll even crack open another bottle or two of wine, Rabbit, and let you tell me how sexy I am again.”

  Her soft giggle made me smile even harder.

  “I don’t need the wine to see how sexy you are. But the evening sounds perfect, Joshua.”

  I kissed her, softly stroking my tongue on hers, but didn’t deepen it.

  I stood up. “Okay, I’ll go get rid of Cecilia. I’ll tell her I have a hot date for the night and she needs to vamoose. She’s cramping my style.”

  I grinned as Rabbit’s laughter followed me down the hall. I made her forget about her nightmare and laugh.

  Mission accomplished.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Joshua

  Two days later, I was surprised to hear the intercom buzz with Cecilia’s code. I heard the car pull up outside and, frowning, went to the door before she had a chance to knock. She had sent me a bunch of lists via email yesterday and she wasn’t supposed to be back for at least a week.

  “What are you doing back, Cecilia?”

  “Where is Rabbit?”

  Her brusque tone set me on edge. “She’s lying down with another headache. How did you get here? Why didn’t you call?”

  “I flew of course. I was busy tracking down our pilot, who thought he had a few days off, so I could get here quickly. So forgive me for not calling,” she snapped.

  My stomach tightened at her tone. “What’s going on, Cecilia?”

  Cecilia grabbed my hand silently and dragged me upstairs. She sat down at the computer and started typing rapidly. She pulled on my hand indicating I needed to be closer and I kneeled down beside her, my stomach clenched in fear.

  I watched in dismay as a news story came on and they aired a piece of a press conference. On the screen was a tall man, slightly older than myself. He was begging for the return of his wife who had been missing for a week. I half heard through the buzzing in my ears as he talked in
a broken voice about coming home and seeing his wife lying on the floor covered in blood. Of being attacked from behind. Waking up in the hospital two days later to be told his wife was gone. Everything around me faded away as he spoke of how much his wife meant to him, how they were about to start a family. How much he missed her. I watched as he spoke, begging for her safe return. Pleading with whoever had her to contact him. He needed his wife back. His voice broke and he turned away from the camera.

  I blinked in disbelief. This was the story I had dismissed. The dates hadn’t matched. The couple looked so much older in the blurry picture I had seen. The woman wasn’t Rabbit. She couldn’t be Rabbit.

  Then the news anchor came back with an update. It had been two weeks since the story first aired and still no new information had been discovered, leaving Elizabeth James still missing.

  A picture went up and I stared at a clearer image of Rabbit. She was dressed in a black formal gown, standing beside her husband, Brian, at a charity function. She looked … different. Her hair was swept up and she was looking down, away from the camera, shyly. Her husband’s arm was wrapped around her waist possessively.

  “When did you find this?” I asked; my voice thick with barely-contained emotion.

  “It was on TV last night, Joshua. The original press conference happened weeks ago and this was just an update.”

  I sat immobilized with numbness.

  Rabbit was married.

  Rabbit had another life.

  Rabbit was someone else. She belonged to someone else.

  Internally, I shook my head.

  No. She belonged here. With me.

  “I looked,” I insisted. “As soon as the power came back, I looked; I searched. I even saw the article that was posted in the paper, but it didn’t look like her. That’s a different picture of her. And the dates were wrong. It didn’t match up!”

  “I know, Joshua. That happens sometimes. I read the same article you did, but they had the date listed incorrectly. And although the story made the headlines at first, Joshua, it died off fairly quickly. Brian James is well known in Toronto, but probably not outside of it. He is a wealthy businessman. By the time you looked, it wasn’t front page news anymore. I just happened to catch this last night. I hadn’t paid any attention before. Since they live outside this community and given the chaos that has been going on here, I’m sure it hardly even registered with the local channels given all the trouble caused by the storm.”

  Inside my voice was screaming. No, she doesn’t live far away—Rabbit lives here—with me.

  “No one else knows,” I whispered, looking at Cecilia desperately. “No one knows she’s here.”

  Cecilia gasped. “Joshua! You can’t keep this from her. She’d never forgive you.”

  I looked at her and her angry gaze softened as she took in my expression.

  “You can’t do that to her, Joshua,” she insisted gently. “If you care about her, if you really care, you have to tell her.”

  “Maybe he’s lying.”

  Cecilia looked at me. “Maybe he isn’t. He is a respected businessman Joshua. Well-known and esteemed in many prominent social circles. I did some checking last night.”

  I looked at the picture that was frozen on the screen. I wouldn’t have recognized her immediately. “She looks … older, so serious. And so thin.”

  “Joshua.” Cecilia’s voice was patient. “She is the wife of a wealthy businessman. She is no doubt very conscious of her appearance and how she presents herself. I did some checking on her as well. Elizabeth James doesn’t work. She volunteers her time. She’s on the boards of a few charities. She attends a lot of public dinners and social functions.”

  “How long?”

  “What?”

  “How long have they been … married?”

  “Not quite two years.”

  I stood up and paced around.

  “Explain the car, Cecilia? How did she get here? Why did she have new, unworn clothes and cash? Nothing else? Explain that to me,” I demanded.

  “I don’t know, Joshua. I wasn’t there! Maybe she escaped from her captors in their car. Maybe she was right when she wondered if the clothes and money were hers. Maybe they were just in the car. I don’t know. You have to ask her, Joshua.”

  I stopped and stared at her.

  “I don’t know if I can do that, Cecilia. I don’t know how to tell her,” I whispered. “Or … if I can take it.”

  She stood up. “You have to, Joshua. It’s the right thing to do. You can’t hide this.”

  I stared at her, knowing she was right. I couldn’t lie to Rabbit.

  “Do you want me to stay while you talk to her?”

  I shook my head. I had to do this alone. “Can you stay … close?”

  “Of course. I packed a bag. I’ll go into town. If you need me to come back, call me.”

  After she left, I sat down heavily in front of the computer. Keeping the sound down, I replayed the news reel again and again. I watched Elizabeth’s husband closely. He seemed sincere; filled with worry for his missing wife and struggling. I thought of Rabbit’s injuries, her hands in particular; they could have been defensive wounds, trying to fight off an attacker. If so, she had fought hard, thinking of the shoe imprints as well as the dark handprints that had stained her arms. I thought of her nightmares, her feelings of fear and of voices yelling. They could also be memories of being abducted. I shook my head that was beginning to ache from the tension I was feeling. Rolling my shoulders, I sighed.

  I pulled up another search engine, hesitated for a moment, then typed in the name Elizabeth James. I looked at the various images of this woman who looked like an older, more sombre version of my Rabbit. Her hair was up in every picture and it was rare if she ever looked straight at the camera. She was always impeccably dressed and looked very … proper. Sedate. I wouldn’t have immediately recognized her unless I saw her eyes. Almost all the pictures had her husband standing beside her. I couldn’t tell from her expression if she was happy. Her eyes told me nothing, unlike now when I could read her so easily with one look at her expressive orbs. There was always a small smile on her face, but her eyes were … vacant? I sighed. Or maybe they were simply cautious. I didn’t know. Maybe, I admitted to myself, I didn’t want to know.

  I was so absorbed in studying the screen that the gasp that came from directly behind me startled me. I spun around to see Rabbit standing behind me, looking at the computer. Her face was pale and her eyes darted rapidly between my face and the screen, not understanding what she was seeing.

  Her voice was shaky. “Josh … Joshua?”

  I stood up and went to her, pulling her into my arms. I could feel her trembling. I pressed her face into my shoulder and rocked us, needing just to feel her close for a moment.

  I pulled back and looked down at her. Her eyes stared at me with trepidation. I cupped her cheek with my hand in a gentle caress, and then silently led her to the desk, pulling her down onto my lap. She stared at the images on my screen.

  “That’s me?” she questioned nervously.

  “It is.”

  She stared at the screen for a moment. “I look … different.”

  “You’re all dressed up, Rabbit. Out on the town.”

  She looked at me with a frown.

  I smiled gently. ”You just look different than you’re used to seeing yourself right now, that’s all.”

  “I need you to watch something, Rabbit. Watch it carefully, okay?”

  She nodded, both her hands clasping one of mine tightly. I hit the button to replay the clip and studied her closely as she watched it. Her brow furrowed as she watched the screen intently. I didn’t see any dawning of recognition on her face. The only noise she made was when her picture came up with Brian. She drew back, her hand over her mouth, tears silently coursing down her cheeks. My heart plummeted.

  “Do you remember him, Rabbit?”

  She stared at the screen in silence. Then she shook her head. “No,
” she whispered. “Nothing.”

  She stood up and started pacing. Her hands were wringing together over and over again. “I’m married? That’s my … husband?”

  I nodded.

  She stared at me for a moment, as if unable to comprehend what was happening.

  “But I wasn’t wearing a ring,” her voice trembled.

  “Perhaps you lost it, or it was taken from you,” I said patiently.

  I held out my hand. “Come back, Rabbit. Look at these pictures.” Her head shook silently. “Please, Rabbit.”

  She approached me slowly and I pulled her back onto my lap. I could feel the tremors flowing through her body with the shock. Even though I was feeling the pain as well, I needed to comfort her.

  “It’s okay, Rabbit. I’m still right here,” I said softly as I held her tightly.

  I brought up the images of her again and we were both silent as I flipped through them slowly. I watched her again for reactions, but she remained impassive as she looked at the pictures. It was as if she was looking at images of a complete stranger.

  I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. “Does this ... trigger anything for you …” I drew in a deep breath, “Elizabeth?”

  She stood up. “Don’t! Don’t call me that!” she cried and turned around, fleeing down the stairs.

  I looked after her, dumbfounded.

  I had to follow her.

  I knew that.

  But what was I going to say?

  How was I going to stop her heart from breaking when mine was breaking right along with it?

  I walked into the bedroom and my heart immediately clenched. Rabbit was curled up on the floor, her head buried in the chair, sobbing. Bear stood beside her, his head cocked as he observed her pain. One great paw was on the chair beside her head and his stance was protective.

  I patted his head and leaned down, scooping Rabbit up. I sat down and held her on my lap while she sobbed. Scrambled thoughts fell out of her mouth between sobs.

  “I didn’t know… you told me … I can’t … what to do … I can’t … how to face him … how to explain … don’t want to … Joshua … can’t leave …”